Chapter Four: Velenovela
When we last left our hero, Mr. of Rivia, he was deep into his investigation of the Bloody Baron's missing wife and daughter.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: This blog series (obviously) contains major spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Current Level: 5
Current Location: A fisherman’s hut, Velen, Northern Temeria
When we last left our hero, Mr. of Rivia, he was deep into his investigation of the Bloody Baron's missing wife and daughter. After a brutal struggle with hungry wraiths attracted to Phillip's botchling unborn child, we finally broke the curse that held her and turned her into a lubberkin. She showed her gratitude by leading us to the home of the fisherman who helped her mother and sister escape, answering the question of where Tamara was (Oxenfurt) but raising even more questions about Anna's whereabouts.
What did we do?
Back at Crow's Perch, the baron has taken to sitting in the garden and staring at his wife's flowers. He's pleased that Geralt has been able to find some more information on his family's whereabouts, but wondering why he hasn't brought Tamara back from Oxenfurt. The baron asks Geralt to verify that she's safe and hands us a Letter of Safe Conduct to cross the Pontar River without being hassled by guards—yeehaw! But also, in other good news, finding Tamara means that Geralt gets to learn more about Ciri's story.
Ciri went out on a hunt with the baron's men and kills a wild boar with her sword. The boys suggest that the true test of her abilities is a horse race, to which she readily agrees, with the black mare in the stable at stake. But there's a problem—the mare belongs to the baron. He offers to race Ciri with her sword as his prize if he wins, but she wins easily. The race is quickly forgotten, however, when a basilisk shows up and attacks them!
The baron won't give us the rest of the story for free, though, so it's off to Oxenfurt for Geralt. The baron stops us on our way out of Crow’s Perch to ask us to give his daughter a rag doll when we find her, and we're on our way. I decide to ride a stretch of points of interest from Lindenvale to Oxenfurt. The first thing I discovered was a guy hauling corpses who claimed to be immune to the plague. He'd been attacked by ghouls attracted to the scent of the bodies, and Geralt lit the wagon on fire for him. The points of interest trail was fairly lucrative, with only a very strong alghoul requiring me to run away.
Safely in Oxenfurt, it's time to find Tamara. But first, it's finally time to do something about Geralt's hair and beard. I like this barber a lot; I find the Novigrad barber to be a tryhard, and they’re the only two on the continent I trust with Geralt’s hair. I always go for the same look: hair long and loose, beard full but trimmed short. The man looks gorgeous like this.
Inside Tamara's house, we find out that she's been shacking up with the Eternal Fire—and she's still pretty mad at her dad, justifiably so. Geralt asks what happened to her the night they were attacked and Tamara more or less confirms the fisherman's account. She's pledged her life to this religious cult ("powerful friends" as she calls them) because they told her they'd connect her to witch hunters who could help her find her mother. She doesn't want to see her dad ever again. We're then joined by one of her witch hunter friends himself, who whisks her away, but not before Geralt can give her the rag doll. She's unimpressed and walks out of the house with the Witch Hunter.
We journey back to Crow's Perch to deliver the news to the baron, at which point I always start to feel kind of bad for him because I get in my feelings about my dad—who is not anything like the baron, by the way. I just love my dad because he is the daddest dad ever to dad, and the baron is such a dad in this moment. He's sad Tamara threw the doll away and reiterates to Geralt that Anna is still missing. This is where we reach the point of being unable to keep looking for her without first beginning our other main story quest. That means it's time to go see the witch of Midcopse.
I know where the witch's house is, so I go straight there. When we arrive, Geralt finds that the witch is none other than his old friend, Keira Metz, who disappears into her house and then into a portal before Geralt can speak to her. We investigate her hut and eventually follow her through the portal to her forest bathtub haven, where she and Geralt engage in the sort of tits-out flirty banter friends enjoy all the time before he gets to the point: he's looking for Ciri, and heard she had quarreled with a witch. Keira hasn't seen her, but she was recently asked about a woman matching her description by an elven mage, though she didn't get his name or see his face. He'd asked Keira to take Ciri to his hideout if she did find her, and she's more than happy to escort Geralt there, since she also has unfinished business with the elf.
At the ruins, Keira gavellas her first glan and we're off to wander in the dark. Immediately, Geralt realizes they've encountered more than they bargained for, because the Wild Hunt is on the other side of the ruins with a navigator. He asks Keira to teleport them to the other side, and after she begrudgingly opens a portal, the two are separated. When we find her again, she's cowering in fear of rats, which Geralt kills. There's something wrong with the ruins—it thwarts all her attempts at teleportation, so they keep going on foot. In the next room, a projection of the elf speaks to Ciri: "I wait for you, daughter of the gull. Follow the sign of your sword." Geralt explains that the riddle really just says "Hey ciri, a.k.a. heir of Lara Dorren, follow the swallow symbols. You know, cause your sword is named Swallow," and we're on our way again.
After a close call with some wraiths and poisonous gas, we find another projection pillar that says, "Swallow, the most obvious choice is not always best. Find kelpie." This confuses Keira again, until Geralt explains that her horse was named Kelpie. This room is actually the reason I put down the game for a hot minute all those years ago, cause I didn't know that I had to dive into the water and I tried to fight the ridiculously strong versions of Keira and Geralt a bunch of times. anyway, I do know that now, so we hop in the water and through the tunnel, where geralt's interaction with a horse symbol opens some kind of door. The portal behind the door is the very one that disrupted Keira's teleportation efforts, and Geralt activates it, reassured of its safety by the fact that it was essentially password-protected for Ciri. Onward!
Unfortunately, this portal was decidedly just for Ciri, so the golem on the other side isn't super happy to see us. We take him out relatively easily, and Keira tells us that her intuition told her they'd beat the golem—as well as telling her some "very good" things about Geralt. I wanted to tackle the challenge of the optional gargoyle, but the game glitched and Keira didn't help me in the fight at all, so I got destroyed. Won't be trying that again!
Officially back on the trail after that detour by death, we've managed to make it to the other side of the ruins at last. This means the Wild Hunt is already way ahead of us, though, so gotta hurry! We run past a bunch of frozen sentries before entering a giant room that the Wild Hunt guy summons the White Frost into before leaving, opening a bunch of rifts that Keira now has to try to close while keeping a protective shield spell over herself and Geralt. It's up to Geralt to kill the Hounds of the Wild Hunt that emerge from the rifts while Keira closes each one. It's a bit close, but we get it done. Keira is feeling faint and my silver sword is damaged, but we must go on. Again, I choose the optional sidetrack of the secret passage behind a nearby wall, but am cornered and clawed to death by a foglet. Okay, okay, I get it. I'll stop exploring now.
Finally, we're left to fight Nithral, a wraith who is clearly at least somewhat important in the Wild Hunt. Despite having just been murdered by a foglet, I accomplished this somewhat easily? And as it turns out, we've also stumbled upon the elf's laboratory, where the final projection tells Ciri to hurry out of here, trust no one, and beware the witches of Crookback Bog. Geralt is disappointed that they still know remarkably little, but Keira corrects him while he's talking about the witches and he realizes she knows more. They're also known as the Ladies of the Wood, and they reside in the swamps. She's never met them, but they're credited with driving away the plague in Velen. One can find them by first locating a chapel in the bog and then by following the Trail of Treats. Literally speaking, this is a path lined by cookies and candies strung up on sticks like scarecrows, and it leads into the heart of the swamp, which Keira warns Geralt is dangerous and vast. She hands him a book and suggests looking for a way out.
The way out is hidden by an illusion, easily dispelled by the Eye of Nehaleni, which Keira happens to have. But wait—won't we help her with just one more teensy favor? She needs the magic lamp the elf promised her in exchange for her help. I like this side quest a lot, so I'm happy to help. The next room offers us a riddle in Elder Speech, which I solve by lighting the fires in front of the guardian statues in the correct order. There's a grave in there that seems to be a shrine to Lara Dorren, and that's where Keira locates the lamp. She asks for him to pay her a visit and heads home, leaving us to decide where we're going next.
What did we learn?
Playing it safe: I gotta be honest, at this difficulty, playing it a bit safe counts for a lot. It shows in my death count.
Death Count (This Chapter): 2
Death Count (Total): 24
Killed by a gargoyle in the elven ruins when the game glitched and Keira just stood there instead of helping me fight it.
Killed by a foglet in the elven ruins doing some more optional exploration.
NOTE: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the intellectual property of the appropriate copyright holders, including the screencaps from the game I have included in this essay. I have no official affiliation with CDPR or anyone else associated with the game/books/universe; I’m just a fan who plays Witcher to cope.